LHC Students at CERN

Students working on the LHC sit outside of Geneva's CERN Physics Laboratory, home of the particle collider.

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LHC Tunnel

Credit: CERN

This photo shows the tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider, where beams of particles pass through the central pipes before colliding with each other.

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LHC Detector

Credit: CERN

Detectors like this are placed at the spots where particles collide inside the LHC ring. They include sensitive equipment to detect the presence of exotic…Read More »

particles and their decay products that are created in the collisions. Less «

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LHC Control Room

Credit: CERN

Physicists watch particle collision data inside the LHC control room.

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LHC Particle Tracks

Credit: CERN

When particles collide inside the accelerator, they explode into energy that gives rise to new particles. These are often short-lived and decay into other…Read More »

particles. The particle products of collisions are shown as tracks in diagrams like this. Less «

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LHC's ATLAS

Credit: CERN

The ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider is one of the machine's two big all-purpose detectors.

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ATLAS Tracker Barrel

Credit: CERN

Here, a technician works on the semiconductor tracker barrel of the ATLAS experiment.

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ATLAS' Cavern

Credit: CERN

Workers move an instrument called a calorimeter inside the ATLAS cavern.

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ATLAS Mural

Credit: CERN

The building that houses the ATLAS experiment and its offices is painted with a mural showing two walls the detector with a collision event superimposed.

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ATLAS in LEGOS

Credit: ATLAS/CERN

A model of the ATLAS detector made out of LEGO blocks by Sascha Mehlhase.

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CMS Experiment

Credit: Michael Hoch / AdventueArt / CERN

The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment is LHC's second major all-purpose detector. Among other projects, it is searching for the elusive theoretical particle called the Higgs boson.

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Higgs Boson

Credit: CERN/ATLAS

This track is an example of simulated data modelled for the ATLAS detector. The Higgs boson is produced in the collision of two protons at 14 TeV and quickly…Read More »

decays into four muons, a type of heavy electron that is not absorbed by the detector. The tracks of the muons are shown in yellow. Less «

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Heavy CMS

Credit: CERN.

CMS weighs more than 12,000 tons.

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LHC Beauty

Credit: CERN/Maximilien Brice, Rachel Barbier

Scientists on the accelerator's LHCb (or LHC Beauty) experiment stand in front of their detector, which searches for rare particle decay processes.

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Technician in the Tunnel

Credit: CERN

A technician works inside the LHC tunnel during the machine's construction.

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17 Miles

Credit: CERN

The ring of the LHC extends 17 miles (27 kilometers) underneath Switzerland and France.

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Ignition Halted

Credit: CERN

LHC first fired up in 2008, but went offline shortly thereafter when some of its giant magnets failed because of faulty connections.

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Control Room

Credit: CERN

A fish-eye view of the LHC control room, where physicists watch particle collisions as they take place.

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Huge Collaboration

Credit: CERN

The LHC experiments include thousands of physicists from dozens of countries.

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LHC's ALICE Experiment

Credit: CERN

The ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider studies heavy-ion collisions in search of a quark-gluon soup similar to the state of the early universe.

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ALICE's Inner Tracker

Credit: CERN

An interior shot of an element of ALICE called the inner tracker.

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Lead-Tungstate Crystals

Credit: CERN

ALICE's photon spectrometer contains 3,584 lead-tungstate crystals, a material as transparent as ordinary silica glass but with nearly four times the density.…Read More »

When a high-energy particle passes through one of these crystals it will scintillate, allowing the energy of electrons, positrons and photons to be measured through the 17,920 detection channels. Less «

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ALICE Magnet

Credit: CERN

Technicians work on cabling inside the ALICE magnet.

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